Materials for Living: Parliamentary Exhibition

This Parliamentary exhibition, organised in partnership with the Royal College of Art, Coca-Cola and the Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group, explored current research into sustainable materials and their use in everyday products, including sustainable plastics and textiles. Whether transforming organic waste into durable packaging, or experimenting with new hi-tech craft aesthetics, the work on display demonstrated the future potential of materials research and its various applications. Examples of work from the Royal College of Art were juxtaposed with research-in-practice at Coca-Cola including their newly developed PlantBottle^TM.

  
Exhibitor Erik de Laurens with his project The Fish Feast, a material made entirely from treated fish scales. And Attua and Oscar of Silo with their NSEPS (Not So Expanded Polystyrene) furniture.

  
Carmen Hijosa's material, Ananas Anam, is made by recycling the waste product from the Philippines' pineapple harvest. Julie Behseta's experiments recycle different plastics to make new compounds, with textiles weaved through to create a starting new aesthetic.

  
Alkesh Parmar has been working with orange peel - a by-product from juice extraction - to make a new material, A'Peel, which is strong, flexible and completely biodegradeable. Coca-Cola have recently launch a new sustainable Coke bottle, PlantBottle^TM

  
Barry Sheerman MP, Co-Chair of the APSRG and the APDIG and Dr Paul Thompson, Rector of the Royal College of Art


Patrick McGuirk, Head of Recycling at Coca-Cola